Stephen Fry reaches 50,000 Twitter followers

Fans inveigled by chats about bats and that

Stephen Fry, one of the most famous tweeters, has reached the landmark number of 50,000 followers for his regular updates on Twitter.

Such is the plenitude of Fry's fan base that he says he was able to find out what to do about a bat in his house much faster than using the 'boring old internet'.

"A month or so ago, my cleaner was in a state because there was a bat loose in the house.

"I immediately tweeted to ask what I do when a bat is loose in the house, and within seconds I had hundreds of replies streaming down my screen, telling me it was a protected species and on no account to attack it and all that, and to call this number. It was wonderful, there's a collective wisdom and insight about [being active on Twitter]."

Forget about the press

He also said that his tweeting was so regular that he often fell into the trap of thinking that his messages would have a negative effect on his celebrity attraction:

"I was on an internal flight in America and it was the first flight I'd been on that had internet on the plane.

"I was tweeting away, and then there was a paparazzo at the airport at Los Angeles to meet me. Of course, duh, if you're telling these people where you are, don't be surprised if people stalk you, so I've become a little warier of telling people where I am."

If you want to see Stephen Fry chatting about his love of Twitter, then head on over to the BBC, which has a video of him waxing lyrical about all the fun of micro-blogging.